----- Original Message ----- Hi All,
Appended is an article that appeared yesterday in the Huffington Post. Although the glasses are only a design concept, the article also refers to The vOICe for Android, which of course is fully functional and meant for use with camera glasses such as the one proposed in this design. Best wishes, Peter Meijer The vOICe for Android http://www.seeingwithsound.com/android.htm Navigation glasses for the blind help visually impaired see through sound. By Sara Gates.While this may not be the first concept design claiming to help the blind see, it is by far the most visionary - excuse our pun. Designed by Xu Guang-suo, the
Navigation Glasses for the blind help sight-impaired people visualize their surroundings through sound.The sleek concept would utilize built-in sensors to alert the wearer to nearby objects, whether they're in front, behind or beside the wearer. Using a separate
earpiece with an attached microphone that extends across the face, the userwould directly communicate with the device and is guided through auditory feedback.
As seen on Yanko Design, the Navigation Glasses could provide a larger,360-degree reach than a walking stick, which only alerts the visually impaired
user to elements immediately in front of them.Although the wearer would receive "accurate realtime feedback" from the headset, it's not quite clear what type of feedback this entails. Ubergizmo predicts that
the user can ask navigational questions that could not be easily answered by sound feedback, such as "Is the light green?" We're partial to agree sincetranslation and understanding of traffic signs and signals appear to be missing
from the sight-to-sound design. Guang-suo's design follows a long line of concepts that reportedly offervisualization through sound. A software program called the vOICe, available as an Android app, pulls footage from a live camera mounted on a pair of glasses
and translates the images into sounds. This sensory substitution produces artificial vision meant to vastly improve the quality of life of the sight-impaired user.Other efforts to assist the blind include navigation glasses that translate a
person's surroundings into a 3D braille map. Source URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/15/navigation-glasses-for-the-blind_n_1599573.html ---------- To send a message to the list, send any message to blindza@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ---------- To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to blindza-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the subject line --- The 'homepage' for this list is at http://www.blindza.co.za
